What Are Some of Your Best Practices? 🤔

[Williger]

It's been fun following the "how long did your tracker last before it died" thread and thought, wouldn't it be cool if we could brainstorm on best practices we've discovered that allow us to best enjoy using our trackers for longer durations instead of just ranting about them not lasting long? I mean that's cool too, but let's begin another thread here to talk about ways we've found that improve our tracker's lives too,

One of my best practices is making sure to properly exercise my batteries. What are some of your best practices with your Fitbit Flex or other Fitbit trackers that give you the best experiences? 

One of the biggest reasons Fitbits die, and this applies to all models and frankly all electronics but we're talking Fitbits, is the battery. There are ways to make your Fitbit batteries live much longer with really basic things and I'm willing to gamble there's one major thing that probably the majority of Fitbit users are doing that's reducing the life of their tracker. It's really simple too. Keeping your tracker constantly full will shorten the battery life and your Fitbit can't function without its battery.

Reading several posts about people having terrible battery life I have to consider that the majority of people like to keep their devices fully charged, am I right? Heck, I'm doing it now on my mobile phone, we all do this, but when it comes to Fitbits, it's worth letting our little trackers do a little workout themselves. A constantly regularly fully-topped-off / charged Fitbit will lose the capacity to store battery power compared to one that's allowed to "exercise" and run low occasionally, preferably never stored above 50% charge nor should they be stored uncharged. These minor things make a major difference in the life of your tracker.

I'm sure there are people in this community much more knowledgeable than I about how batteries work and the specifics behind degradation but that's just one way we can help each other - by sharing a tip or two we've learned along the way that might extend the lives of our devices, which seems to be a common concern amongst group members in this and every other of the community forums.

In summary: Let your trackers run down low battery occasionally, never store them completely uncharged and never store them above 50% charge and they'll last a heckuva lot longer than if you keep charging them fully.

MOD's - move this to a different forum if deemed appropriate to do so but I'm dropping it here 🖕

[NellyG]

Hi @Williger I am no battery expert, but from what I have read I disagree with your hypothesis. Fitbits use Lithium Ion batteries. LI batteries need to be kept with charge at all times - never lower than around 20% (approximately). They do not like to be let run flat (ever) and prefer to be between 20 and 80 or 90%. If storing, I understand you should charge to around 90% and not allowed to drop below around 20%.

[Williger]

@NellyG actually, no, Fitbit uses Lithium Polymer, not Lithium-Ion batteries. They're completely different and most people are confused about them and I'm not an expert either. The point of the thread is to share best practices, this was just one of many that make my Fitbit experiences better overall. Surely, you have found best practices too. What are some things you know or learned that some of us may not that you can share? 

In a workweek challenge, someone shared about wearing their tracker on their shoe when cycling or grocery shopping to capture their steps. Another mentioned always keeping a spare charging cable in their car. It doesn't have to be technical, I'm sure all of us have found different things that have benefited our experiences and thought it would be fun to share.